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Exile Centre Members

Professor Charmian Brinson

Professor Charmian Brinson is Honorary Treasurer of the Centre and Director of Language Studies in the Centre for Co-Curricular Studies at Imperial College London. Her main areas of interest are political exile and women in exile. Publications include The Strange Case of Dora Fabian and Mathilde Wurm: A Study of German Political Exiles in London during the 1930s (Berne/London, 1997); ‘“In the exile of internment” or “Von Versuchen aus einer Not eine Tugend zu machen”: German-speaking women interned by the British during the Second World War’ in Politics and Culture in Twentieth Century Germany edited by W. Niven and J. Jordan (Rochester, N.Y., 2003); [edited with R. Dove] Stimme der Wahrheit: German-language Broadcasting by the BBC (Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, 2003); [with M. Bearman et al.] Wien-London, Hin und Retour: Das Austrian Centre in London, 1939 bis 1947 (Vienna, 2004); [with A. Müller-Härlin and J. Winckler] ‘His Majesty’s Loyal Internee’: Fred Uhlman in Captivity (London 2010); [edited with M. Malet], Exile in and from Czechoslovakia during the 1930s and 1940s (Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, 2009); [with R. Dove] Politics By Other Means: The Free German League of Culture in London 1939-1946 (London, 2010); [with R. Dove] A Matter of Intelligence. MI5 and the Surveillance of Anti-Nazi Refugees (Manchester, 2014); [edited with M.Malet] 'Warum schweigt die Welt?' Die Entführung von Berthold Jacob. Eine Dokumentation (Berne, 2014); '"Very much a Family Affair": The Kuczynski Family and British Intelligence' in Voices from Exile. Essays in Memory of Hamish Ritchie edited by I. Wallace (Leiden, 2015).

Dr Jana Barbora Buresova

Dr Jana Buresova was the Research and Information Assistant at Refugee and Migrant Justice (formerly the Refugee Legal Centre), prior to being awarded the Martin Miller Bursary for Doctoral Study at the then Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies (now IMLR), University of London. Her thesis topic was 'The Dynamics of Forced Female Migration from Czechoslovakia to Britain, 1938‒1950', facets of which she has drawn upon and developed for a number of conferences and publications concerning exile, including ‘The Czech Refugee Trust Fund in Britain, 1939-1950’, in Exile in and From Czechoslovakia During the 1930s and 40s (Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, Vol. 11, [2009]), and ‘From a Far Away Country: Some Aspects of Czechoslovak Cultural Life in Britain During WWII’, in Twentieth Century Wars in European Memory edited by Jozef Niznik (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2013). She is a committee member of IMLR’s Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, is actively involved in the Association of Jewish Refugees Audio-Visual Testimony Archive project, and undertaking post-doctoral research. Her key areas of interest are political exile past and present, and particularly Czechoslovak women in exile.

Rachel Dickson

Rachel Dickson (MA, Courtauld Institute) is an art historian and Head of Curatorial Services at the Ben Uri Gallery and Museum.

Her area of research interest focuses on the two waves of Jewish migration into Britain from the late 19th century onwards, following Ben Uri's survey exhibition (2009-10) Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile, c. 1933-45. Recent/forthcoming publications include: [with Sarah MacDougall and Ulrike Smalley] 'High and Low Art produced in the Isle of Man Internment Camps during World War II' in Cultural Heritage and Prisoners of War: Creativity Behind Barbed Wire edited by G. Carr and H. Mytum (London, 2011); '"Jewish Artists will be lost to Jewry without Jewish Support”: the Ben Uri Art Society and Emigré Artists 1933-51 in Netzwerke des Exils: Künstleriche Verflechtungen, Austausch und Patronage nach 1933 edited by B. Dogramici and K. Wimmer (Berlin, 2011); [with Sarah MacDougall] 'Fred Feigl in England, 1939–1965: “Modern Art is a Sputnik”' in Friedrich Feigl: The Eye Sees the World (Cheb CZ, 2016); 'A Real Temple of Jewish Art’? – A Century of Ben Uri in London 1915-2015' in Art and Religion in London edited by A. Rosen and C. Reddaway (London, 2016); 'Heinz Kiewe – An Emigré Journey from Onchan to Oxford' in Ark of Civilization edited by S. Crawford and K. Ulmschneider (Oxford, 2016); 'Elisabeth Tomalin - Emigré Designer 1912-2012: "The only joy in life is being creative"‘ in Gender and Exile (Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, 2017).

Dr Anthony Grenville is Chairman of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies. He is co-editor of the monthly journal of the Association of Jewish Refugees, and was co-director of the programme of filmed interviews ‘Refugee Voices: The Association of Jewish Refugees Audio-Visual Testimony Archive’ and the exhibition ‘Continental Britons: Jewish Refugees from Nazi Europe’ (2002). His main research interest is the history of the Jewish refugees from the German-speaking countries who came to Britain to escape Nazism. Publications include Continental Britons: Jewish Refugees from Nazi Europe (London, 2002); [edited with M. Malet] Changing Countries: The Experience of German-speaking Exiles from Hitler in Britain, from 1933 to Today (London, 2002); [with M. Bearman et al.] Wien – London, Hin und Retour: Das Austrian Centre in London 1939 bis 1947 (Vienna, 2004); Jewish Refugees from Germany and Austria in Britain 1933-1970. Their Image in the 'AJR Information' (London/Portland, 2009); Stimmen der Flucht: Österreichische Emigration nach Großbritannien ab 1945 (Vienna, 2011).

Dr Andrea Hammel

Dr Andrea Hammel is Lecturer in German at Aberystwyth University. She is currently Co-Director of the AHRC Network 'Holocaust Writing and Translation' and has had funding from the Claims Conference and the British Academy to facilitate research on the Kindertransport which will result in a monograph. She is member of the executive of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Exilforschung. She was involved in compiling an Online Database of British Archival Resources Relating to German-speaking Refugees, 1933-1950 (BARGE). Her research interests include exile literature, especially by women writers; German-Jewish women; autobiographies and memoirs. Selected Publications: [edited with Bea Lewkowicz] The Kindertransport 1938/39: New Perspectives (Amsterdam, 2012);[edited with Godela Weiss-Sussex] ‘Not an Essence but a Positioning’: German Jewish Women Writers, 1900-1938 (Munich/London: Meidenbauer/IGRS, 2009); Everyday Life as Alternative Space in Exile Writing: The Work of Anna Gmeyner, Selma Kahn, Hilde Spiel, Martina Wied and Hermynia Zur Mühlen, (Berne/Oxford: Lang, 2008); [edited with W. Benz and C. Curio] Kindertransporte 1938/39 (special issue of Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 2004).

Dr Bea Lewkowicz

Dr Bea Lewkowicz is co-director of the programme of filmed interviews ‘Refugee Voices: The Association of Jewish Refugees Audio-Visual Testimony Archive’. She also co-directed the exhibition ‘Continental Britons: Jewish Refugees from Nazi Europe’ shown at the Jewish Museum, London, in 2002. Her research interests include oral history; trauma and memory; diasporas; nationalism and ethnicity; the Jews of Salonika; and German-Jewish refugees in Britain. Publications include The Jewish Community of Salonika: History, Memory, Identity (London, 2006); ‘“After the War We Were All Together”: Jewish Memories of Post-War Thessaloniki’ in After the War Was Over. Reconstructing the Family, Nation, and State in Greece, 1943-1960 edited by M. Mazower (Princeton, 2000); ‘“Greece is My Home, But…”: Ethnic Identity of Greek Jews in Thessaloniki’ (Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 1994); ‘Das Selbstverständnis junger Juden in Thessaloniki’ in Stadtmosaik Thessaloniki edited by W. Kokot (Bonn, 1990).

Dr Anna Nyburg’s doctorate, subsequently published as Émigrés: the Transformation of Art Publishing in Britain (Phaidon, 2014), focused on the art publishing houses set up by German and Austrian refugees to Britain, as well as on book design and production by other refugees in the field. From Leipzig to London: the Life and Work of the Émigré Artist Hellmuth Weissenborn (her biography of the refugee artist Hellmuth Weissenborn) was published by Oak Knoll in 2012. She has also contributed articles on other aspects of exile to the Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies (Leiden: Brill): on ‘Food in Exile’ (vol. 16), ‘Margarete Berger Hamerschlag and the Theatre: Vienna, Rome, London’ (vol. 14), and ‘“Dein grosser Brief war ein Ereignis”: the Private and Professional Correspondence of the Refugee Art Historians Hilde and Otto Kurz’ (vol. 9), and gave a paper on ‘Motherhood and Exile’ at the Centre’s triennial conference on ‘Gender and Exile’ in 2014. She was on the editorial/translation team of Bruno Cassirer Publishers Ltd. Oxford 1940–1990. An Annotated Bibliography with Essays (English and German) (Vandenhoeck, 2016), to which she also contributed a chapter entitled ‘A Consideration of the Art Publishing Landscape in Oxford in the 1940s: Bruno Cassirer Publishers Oxford, Phaidon and the Oxford University Press’, and contributed two articles to Matrix. A Review for Printers and Bibliophiles: ‘The Search for Hellmuth Weissenborn’ (vol. 31) and ‘Emigrés’ (vol. 33). Dr Nyburg has since concentrated on other aspects of the refugee contribution to design in this country, becoming a consultant on the Victoria & Albert Museum's project to digitise archives of Jewish Refugee Designers. She spoke on émigrés in the British fashion industry at the Ben Uri centenary exhibition Out of Chaos and at the Oxford Continuing Education Programme (2016). On the latter programme she has also spoken on refugee designers, publishing in exile, and internment art. Her chapter on refugee publishers in Oxford is to appear in Ark of Civilisation (OUP, forthcoming, 2017).

Professor Andrea Reiter

Andrea Reiter is Professor of German at the University of Southampton. Her research interests include Holocaust and exile studies, 20th-century Austrian literature, German-Jewish literature, and the relation between literature and music. She is co-investigator on a major research project, Schenker Documents Online, which has received funding from the Leverhulme Trust and the AHRC. It is currently funded by the Fonds zur Förderung Wissenschaftlicher Forschung in Vienna. Her most recent monograph is entitled Contemporary Jewish Writing. Austria after Waldheim (New York, 2013). Other book publications include Der ′Eckartbote′: Modell einer computergestützten Inhaltsanalyse als Beitrag zur Kritik völkisch-nationaler Ideologie (Stuttgart, 1985); 'Auf dass sie entsteigen der Dunkelheit’. Die literarische Bewältigung von KZ-Erfahrung (Vienna, 1995); [English translation] Narrating the Holocaust (London, 2000); [edited] Children of the Holocaust (London, 2005); Die Exterritorialität des Denkens. Hans Sahl im Exil (Göttingen, 2007); [edited with Anthony Grenville] ‘I didn’t want to float; I wanted to belong to something’. Refugee Organizations in Britain 1933-1945 (Amsterdam, 2008); [edited with Anthony Grenville] Exile Politics - Politics in Exile (Amsterdam, 2011); [edited with Lucille Cairns] Jewish Writers and Intellectuals in Contemporary Europe [special issue of Jewish History and Culture, 14: 2-3], 2013), and essays on Austrian authors such as Thomas Bernhard, Ilse Aichinger and Ruth Beckermann, Robert Menasse, Anna Mitgutsch, Julya Rabinowich and Vladimir Vertlib.

Dr Jennifer Taylor (Minutes Secretary) is an independent researcher who has published extensively on Exile in Great Britain. Her articles on the exile press include ‘"Something to make people laugh?”: Political Content in the Isle of Man Internment Camp Journals, July-October 1940’ in ‘Totally Un-English?': Britain’s Internment of 'Enemy Aliens' in Two World Wars (Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, 2005); ‘Zeitspiegel, Young Austria, Austrian News. Die Pressearbeit des Austrian Centre’ in Wien – London, Hin und Retour: Das Austrian Centre in London 1939 bis 1947 edited by M. Bearman et al. (Vienna, 2004). Publications on radio propaganda include ‘Grete Fischer: “Outside Writer” for the BBC’ in Stimme der Wahrheit? (Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, 2003); ‘The Propagandists’ Propagandist: Bruno Adler’s “Kurt und Willi” Dialogues as Expression of British Propaganda Objectives’ in Immortal Austria (Yearbook of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, 2006) while her contribution to the Centre’s triennial Conference held in 2011 was a paper on ‘Die Zwei Genossen’, the Cold War sequel to Adler’s ‘Kurt und Willi’ series. Other research interests include German-speaking Czechs exiled in Great Britain. She has published several articles on Ernst Sommer and Ludwig Winder, and is currently working on the internment of so-called ‘Enemy Aliens’ in the Second World War; ‘”We Have More Than Enough”’, her study of conditions in Huyton Internment Camp in 1940 appeared in the Liverpool History Society Journal in 2009 and an edited series of eye-witness accounts from that camp entitled Civilian Internment in Britain during WW2: Huyton Camp appeared in 2012.

Professor Ian Wallace

Professor Ian Wallace is Emeritus Professor of German at the University of Bath. His current research focuses on the work of German writers exiled in France and the United States after January 1933. He is President of the International Feuchtwanger Society and organiser of the Society’s forthcoming conference on ‘Feuchtwanger and Film’ (Los Angeles, September 2007). He is General Editor of German Monitor and a founder member of the executive committee of the Association Exil en Paradis (Sanary-sur-Mer). Recent publications include essays on Fritz Lang, Lion Feuchtwanger and Stefan Heym; Voices from Exile. Essays in Memory of Hamish Ritchie edited by I. Wallace (Leiden, 2015).